From A Life 8
by TamsinBailey
Summary: The problem wasn't that Booth believed in magic, per se. It was that he believed in the wrong kind of magic. He wished on stars, and avoided black cats, and trusted that everything possible existed at once.
1. The War Was In Colour

**From A Life 8  
>By:<strong> TamsinBailey

Disclaimerus Obligatorius: This story is not for profit, and no copy write infringement is intended.

Explanation: This is one of those dreaded iTunes Challenge Fics, folks. Only I can't get to 10, because I'm supposed to be studying for my 500 ton Near Coastal Masters test. In an effort to retain my career, I've stopped at 8, and hijacked a Steven King title, to boot. Whatcha gonna do? Hmm?

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><p>1. THE WAR WAS IN COLOR - Carbon Leaf<p>

The thing about Seeley Booth's war, was that it had started with a lie. He'd told Bones he couldn't get a Pass, but that was ridiculous. Sargent Majors didn't sneak off base, and they sure as hell didn't go against orders. Yes, there really had been a restriction to base, but Booth had not been subject to it.

If he had been, the Captain enforcing it would've been all of two fucking years old. Booth would have stood silently, stared straight, and simply let gravity increase until the Captain realized the error of his Captainly ways.

So, his war had started with a lie. Now it was going to end with this dead boy. Or maybe he was a dead man?

Whatever he was, Booth had taught him, had mentored him, had yelled at him when necessary. He'd even seen flashes of the man his own son would become. It wasn't personal, though. Booth had seen flickers of Parker in all the younger guys.

The ones who were old enough to vote and screw, but who couldn't legally use alcohol to abet either process. The same men/boys who could bleed shocking amounts of rich, red blood before Glory or Honor or Stupidity finally got around to stopping their hearts. Always looking surprised when one of those bitches stole their last gasp.

Lucas, here; he'd died for stupidity. Possibly Booth's stupidity. Apparently he'd never taught the kid how to properly stay the fuck out of a cardboard box.

On the boiling tarmac Booth touched a white stripe. He looked at the square of blue, and thought about adding PFC Wilson to his personal death tally. Then he took a breath, lifted his hand, and left the war behind.


	2. Lay Down Sally

2. LAY DOWN SALLY - Eric Clapton

"Why do you think sex is so magical?"

Booth thought about sighing, just to remind her how exasperating she was, but didn't. She wouldn't get it, and it wasn't even the truth. Truth was; he was getting used to this strange relationship. He was getting to like it.

He eyed his liking with the same sort of concern he'd give towards a tribe of gnomes approaching his balls with lighted torches. Not good, but also fascinating.

"I told you, Bones."

"No, you've misquoted Aristotle, and demonstrated a poor understanding of Einstein, but you've never explained _why _you think sex is so amazing."

"Making love," he lofted a single pointer finger. She snorted a little, and cast her eyes to heaven, but he refused to budge.

"Fine, making love," she acquiesced with poor grace. He found it cute, and that too was very troubling.

He nibbled a fry. He nibbled a second. She started to percolate at the third, so he wiped his fingers and grinned. Leaning inwards as she did the same, until they were very close indeed. He opened his mouth, she caught her breath, their eyes met.

"You have bad sex, don't you Bones?"

"What!"

Around them heads swiveled, and he grinned a little bit more, loving the offense on her face. "If you have to ask me why sex is fun, then you are _ipso facto _having bad sex."

"You also have a substandard grasp of logic," she snapped.

"Substandard according to who?"

Across the table, her nostrils narrowed aggressively, and her chin jutted. It tried to sneak into his heart and ache. He swatted it away, but her glower crumbled him.

"Alright, Bones, calm down. The reason I think making love is magical is because you really are making something. Taking two people's energy and combining it into something new. Okay?"

She considered it. He saw her actually consider his answer, and it shot a primordial cocktail of lust and affection straight across his blood-brain barrier. That fizzing combination of love and bunny-level fornication.

With Bones. He wanted bunny-level fornication with Bones. This was worse than gnomes. The FBI would kill him. Cam would kill him. Bones herself might actually really kill him. He was definitely going to do it anyway.


	3. Third Planet

THIRD PLANET - modest mouse

" - shouldn't be here."

The mutter came from behind Seeley Booth. Whipping him around to glare across the crime scene, only to find Tilly's eyes sliding leisurely away. The eyes of the second guy, Tilly's assistant, managed to move a little faster, with a lot more adams apple action.

"Booth."

He resisted his name, too busy boring a hole into Tilly's assistant's skinny spine.

"Booth," Bones tried again, adding an edge. He turned back to peer over the side of the pit. Lotsa of mud, lotsa of rotted body, one pregnant forensic anthropologist.

In his chest a steady growl had to be steadily repressed. Here he was, _in the fucking rain_, watching his pregnant wife root in body parts, listening to fucking Tilly make fucking comments about her being out here in the rain while fucking pregnant.

_Non-wife,_ he hastily reminded. His brain huffed and sighed.

"Yeah?" he tried cautiously.

"Stop being possessive," she told him.

Shit! She could read his mind!

"I'm not reading your mind," she prodded a bit of arm currently un-connected to any other bits, "I simply overheard Tilly saying I shouldn't be in the field, and I knew it would trigger you're ridiculously overwrought protective urges."

Booth's arm hairs smoothed down. Then he brightened; Bones knew him!

"Booth!" Bones snapped, and he realized she'd been holding her hand out for a while now, waiting to be hauled out of the pit. He snatched it up, beaming at her. She came over the lip snorting and rolling her eyes, but she squeezed his hand right back.


	4. My Little Basquait

A/N: This is set in the Labverse. Trying to fit it into cannon could cause confusion, distress, upset, and severe injury.

4. MY LITTLE BASQUIAT - the cowboy junkies

"What do you think he'll be like?"

He lay on the plastic feeling hospital bed, big spoon to her little and his head tucked into the scoop of her neck. Asking his wife the questions new parents asked; feeling all the things new parents felt.

"Whoever he wants to be," she answered; ever the practical, but her eyes didn't budge from the clear bassinet anymore than his did. Watching the amazement of something that had been created from nothing

"Eventually we're going to have to name him." Bren broke the quiet, and he let the moment move away.

"Baby Boy Booth does have a certain ring," he smiled over her shoulder, and saw the answering lift of her own mouth, but it didn't last.

"Jared," she said, and it sliced through him. She turned inside the circle of his arms, looking at him the way she could.

"Yeah," he finally agreed, voice rough, feeling her press tighter into him. Giving thanks to a brother he would never understand, naming his child to commemorate what had bravely been irrevocably sacrificed.

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><p>AN the second: That's all for tonight. The second quartet will be posted tomorrow. Please don't mind me, I think I might have gone a wee mad whilst memorizing the Atlantic currents. North equatorial, south equatorial, equatorial counter current, Gulf Stream, Labrador, Canary, Brazil, Benguela...


	5. Diamonds On the Soles of Her Shoes

5. DIAMOND ON THE SOLES OF HER SHOES - Paul Simon

The mission was simple. Get in, procure, get out. The terrain had been reconnoitered, courses plotted, probabilities calculated, outcomes anticipated. Clothing had been picked to blend in, key phrases pre-constructed. So of course it took exactly 12 nanoseconds beyond first engagement to go tits up.

"That one," Booth extended a finger. Behind a narrow but extremely well lit counter, his interlocutor raised an eyebrow.

"Or, uh," Booth retracted the finger, but only half way, peering between his lashes in a wild stab for guidance. The shaver's eyebrow lowered into an anticipatory look, without betraying opinion by flicking towards a choice.

"That one?" His finger extended much slower, this time. Up went one side of his helper's mouth, like Booth had made progress by piddling in the _vicinity _of the front door, without actually going on _the outdoor side _of the front door.

He cleared his throat, stood a little straighter, and stabbed his finger down. Behind the counter, Helper nodded, quite satisfied.

Outside the store, Booth retrieved one Lance Sweets. Contracted for his ability to understand; forbidden from entering based on sheer annoyance factor. He looked at the wee bag in Booth's hand.

"So, how did you decide?"

"Sweets, I'm a full grown man. I know how to buy a gift for a woman."

"That means you had the guy behind the counter choose, right?"

Booth swung the bag holding Bone's birthday present in time with his strides, and refused to answer.


	6. High and Dry

6. HIGH AND DRY - Radiohead

_She was on the talus slope when he finally found her. At the very toe of the mountain, sprawled across a boulder with a looseness that made her look incredibly dead. He shoved the tears away, because what was the point? Right now there was more blood outside him than in. They'd either be seeing each other real soon, or never again. _

_He was only 100 feet below her body when it heaved up, peered around, waved an arm. He came very close to screaming, as anyone would who saw a dead man taking action would. It almost made him not want to come any closer, but the slowness of his ascent gave him plenty of time to get over his girly emotions._

"_Hi," she greeted him. He flopped down beside her, panting and sweating._

"_Hi," he greeted her back. Looking over her grayness and her pinched face. Not dead, but rapidly dying._

"_You know I'm dying, right?" She disabused him of any self deception with her typical bluntness. He nodded. She mustered another arm movement, bringing her hand around to touch his brow._

"_We were kind of stupid, right?" The statement was appropriately wry, but there was a shy vulnerability hiding behind it. Like even this terminal juncture hadn't quite convinced her to allow the risk._

"_Yeah, we were pretty dumb," he told her. She smiled back and he was suddenly glad he was dying. It would be hard to live with this kind of shattered heart._

_He was careful, but she still grunted as he tucked himself against her. Bony structures that should have been holding firm giving a snap crackle pop. He put his hand inside her's and listened as she sputtered into agonal gasping. Death didn't come on little cat's feet like the movie picture shows. It rattled and coughed and in the very end, it shat itself._

_He kept his eyes wide open the whole time, head near her shoulder as he stared into the sky, bearing witness. It put him in perfect position to see the helicopter pop over the horizon. He screamed, but it did no good. The men rushed in and saved his life anyway._

"You cried." Bones accused him before he'd even gotten over being blinded by the stabbing daylight outside the theater.

"What?" he muttered back, distracted and dazzled.

"Your conjunctiva are red, and there's edema around your eyelids. Plus," she mercilessly laid on the master stroke, "I heard you sniffling."

He was opening his mouth for an offensive when she took his arm. Leaning into him and saying "I found it increased my feelings of tenderness and protection towards you, which also reinforced my particular attraction to you."

"Uh, my crying made you want to hump me?" He reached towards exact clarification.

"Yes."

"Huh, how 'bout that."


	7. Live Wire

7. LIVE WIRE - Motley Crue

"Hurry up, dick wad."

Seeley felt someone shove his shoulder. They were standing in a crush of people and had nowhere to go, but Toby shoved anyway. From the shit eating grin on his face, the dude was feeling the hit of acid they'd scored earlier in the park.

"Go where, fuck stain?" Seeley asked, but Toby just sank down into a knee bend and sprang back up, trying to see over the milling crowd. His skinny ass suddenly at eye level was the funniest thing Seeley had ever seen. He laughed, and it looked like blue and purple swirls against the sky.

The guy in front of them turned around, frowning out from under his red mohawk and full adult height. "You guys on drugs?"

Seeley tried to say no, but all he could do was hold onto Toby and howl. He seriously thought he might piss from laughter.

"Whatever," mohawk went back to ignoring them. He thought they were too young to matter. Toby was still laughing, but Seeley felt anger twisting. He wanted to smash the guys fucking face in. Instead he just hauled Toby back up, and settled for a glare. He couldn't afford to get busted for fighting. The pigs would tell Pops about any dirty piss tests. He'd have to behave, keep the old man believing good ol' Seeley was out playing stick ball with the fellows.

"Dude!" Toby cried as the crowd suddenly surged. He tried to pull Seeley along, but he shook off the hand. He was Seeley Booth, and no one was ever going to tell him what do to.


	8. Black Magic Woman

8. BLACK MAGIC WOMAN - Santana

The problem wasn't that Agent Booth believed in magic, per se. It was that he believed in the wrong kind of magic. Lost in his nearly criminal superstitions and nincompoopery. Practically cowering before lightening, when he should have been gasping at the incredible beauty created by evolutionary pressure.

Like the stapes -the smallest and lightest bone in the body. It was perfectly shaped to transmit sound thorough the middle ear. Not because some god decided so, but because generations beyond counting had formed it.

This particular stapes had started out inside Gemma Arrington, and ended up inside the locking mechanism of Judge Hasty's car. It, along with the scientific method, was about to prove that the man had killed the girl, but instead of trembling before science, Agent Booth was trying to claim his gut was somehow responsible.

He was distasteful, superstitious, and obviously a moron. She was extremely glad she'd never have to see him again.

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><p>AN: That be all, folks. Egregiously awful? Acceptably bad? Edging towards okay?

38 18.47'N, 076 17.26'W (deep draft channel, Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, United States, N. American Continent, Earth, Sol System, Universe)


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